The Gaslight Anthem at 02 Brixton Academy, SW9

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With their fist-pumping, blood-coursing, heartland-on-the-sleeve brand of
rock’n’roll, the Gaslight Anthem are the heirs of a musical legacy that has
been defined by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band; they even come from
New Jersey. But they also stand in a line of heroic bands who never made the
big-time grade: the Replacements, Marah, Southside Johnny and the Asbury
Jukes, and various others who have enjoyed the patronage of the novelist
Nick Hornby.

Although the Gaslight Anthem’s latest album, Handwritten, has
been a Top Three hit in Britain and America, there was still something of
the beautiful losers about